Jon and I went outside to see what we could see. Not much. The photo doesn't really give you an accurate impression of how heavy the rain was: we were about ten feet back from the open area and still got our shoes and pantlegs splattered with rain.

The hail came down for about ten minutes in our area. It set off at least one car alarm in the parking lot . . . but you could barely hear it over the noise of the hail landing.

The power went out, killing the lights in front of the building.

The little enclosed area in front of the door rapidly transformed into a small lake. We amused ourselves by trying to come up with appropriate names for the new wetland, and calculating how long it would be before it was officially designated as such.

The workers who'd been replacing some of the roof of our building lost some insulation panels (fortunately, they were too light to damage any of the cars they fell on).

The "T" junction in front of the office flooded deeply enough to stall out a few cars.

It's amazing the number of drivers who tried to gun it through the flooded intersection.

What was perhaps more surprising was the number of near-collisions as people tried to get through or around the flooded area.

The aftermath: incomplete roof repairs PLUS massive rainstorm EQUALS one heck of a clean-up job indoors.

This is the area of the floor just a few feet from my desk.